Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The world is not your "safe space," and isolation from dissenting views is not your right

(note: this post is part of a series on why feminism should embrace the clash of ideas. It can be read in isolation, but would probably be more thoroughly understood in context. Go here for hyperlinks to all posts in this series)Feminist Argument #4: “Open debate between privileged
and underprivileged participants furthers oppression, because it inevitably leads
to one side saying things which prop up the patriarchy. Worse yet, open debate
risks triggering people who may have deeply personal or traumatic experiences
with the subject at hand. For these reasons, open debate is unacceptable in
feminist communities, which should instead prioritize the preservation of “safe
spaces” for oppressed peoples. These communities should only welcome debate if
it takes place under a set of restrictive terms and conditions designed to
prevent or minimize these effects.”

To
clarify, if your position is merely that debate is more appropriate in some
times, places and manners than it is in others, I wholeheartedly agree. The
Facebook status of a woman announcing she was raped as a child is probably not
that time or place. Personal attacks with blatantly sexist insults are not the
manner. Similarly, online groups designed specifically as support agencies for
people who have experienced genuine traumas in their life should not be hijacked
by people who don’t meet that description. And any group that deliberately and
preemptively limits themselves to a certain demographic, so as to designate a
_____-only zone of discussion for the purpose of strategizing or commiserating,
is also cool (provided that is made clear from the outset).

“I’m…okay with using our power as conference organizers to
potentially censor content or behavior that is harmful to a subset of our
community. I’ll say it again in another way: I don’t believe that censorship is
in and of itself a bad thing becausefreedom of expression is not an
unlimited right…

…censorship also prevents harm from being done to vulnerable
populations…We censor children’s access to pornography so that they have less
of a chance to witness sexual material before they are ready for it. We censor
hate speech. We censor certain incitements to violence and crime. We
(hopefully) self-censor too, for a lot of good reasons: so that we don’t hit
our kids or tell our co-workers to go fuck themselves when we’re having a bad
day.

Part of being a mature and responsible adult is knowing when
freedom of expression should be limited and censorship is appropriate”

Another part of being a mature and responsible adult is not
conflating wildly different things in an attempt to normalize what is really a
pretty abnormal position. Concealing pornography from children – or simply
refraining from beating them! – is in no way shape or form analogous to
censoring dissent. Although it is true all three activities are designed to
prevent “harm”, the type of harm which a seven year old experiences when s/he
is beaten or made to watch two-girls-one-cup is so far removed from the type a
woman experiences when a man tells her she’s wrong that surely, in a vocabulary
vast enough to include the word “incitements”, those “harms” might have
warranted distinct descriptions.

But let’s humor this and go a little further; what ought
these community guidelines to be, according to feminists? How is it that people
who disagree with a feminist are supposed to go about interacting with them in
the appropriate way, so as to ensure they don’t “further oppression”? One
particularly obnoxious group member on the Hopkins Feminists’ page proposed a
series of rules governing the groups discourse. I have pasted my favorite six in
italics below:

1. “members of an oppressed group are not
immune from furthering the oppression of members of that same group, but these
discussions should by and large be left in the hands of members of that group.”

Well, how convenient. You know, as a
libertarian, I think people who smoke marijuana are being oppressed by the
government. If I could limit the discussions surrounding marijuana to those
people who smoke it, I imagine my opinions would come out on top in those
discussions every time. But I can’t do that, because to leave debates about
important issues in the hands of people who already agree with me is to not
have any debate at all.

2. “Remove people from the space who refuse
to be called out or insist on upholding oppression. These people may be
educated or informed by group members, but not in a public space that touts itself
as safe for marginalized peoples.”

What is and is not “upholding oppression”
is an opinion. Educated and informed people can and do disagree on what counts
as oppression. To remove those who dare to disagree with you from the
discussion, and thus insulate all group members from their dissent, is
censorship plain and simple.

3. “Defer to the members of the oppressed
group. You may ask for follow up questions, but members of oppressed groups are
not obligated to educate you.”

And I am not obligated to agree with them, nor to shut up
just because they disagree with me. Believe it or not, it is possible for a
member of an oppressed group and the member of the empowered group to get into
a disagreement about a thing in which the member of the empowered group is
correct.

4. “Approach the subject with the intention
to learn, rather than to debate the group whose oppression you are complicit
in.”

As I explained in my second rebuttal, I
find it ridiculous to categorize “learning” and “debate” as two mutually exclusive
things. If anything, I think they are one and the same. If person 1 holds
opinion X, and person 2 holds contradictory opinion Y, and opinion X is tru, person
2 can only ever come to realize that through comparison with the ideas of
person 1 – in a process we normally call DEBATE! We can only learn if we debate
open-mindedly, of course, but we can never learn if we aren’t permitted to
present our qualms or misunderstandings.

5. “You…should just apologize and be
grateful for the knowledge that will enable you to further your efforts as a
feminist.”

Read: you should just assume the other
person is right, and you are wrong, without having actually ever been convinced
of it. Well, no. Being an oppressed woman does not relieve you of the burden of
substantiating your truth claims. If you can’t convince me of your opinion
through reason and logic, I will not just concede you are right just because
you’re female, and it is preposterous to assume anyone would. And feminists
wonder why progress is so slow? Any ideology that expects those who do not
already ascribe to it to apologize outright is in for a rude awakening.

6. “Do not police the feelings and
experiences of oppressed people. Do not expect people to behave politely
towards people who are oppressing them. This is silencing and detracts from
their right to contribute to spaces that should be dedicated to their
empowerment.”

So, let me get this straight. Person A
and Person B disagree about something. Person A has less privilege, on net,
than Person B. This incidental stroke of fate means, according to feminists,
that Person A can say whatever they like to Person B, no matter how offensive.
They can scream, they can hurl obscenities, they can levy personal attacks, and
they are freed from the necessity of making any sense as they do so, because
they have a right to free expression and find it empowering. Any objection from
Person B should be decried as “tone policing”. Any emotional reaction this
produces in Person B should be scorned as making the discussion “all about
them.” Any psychological distress this creates in Person B should be ignored or
even ridiculed. In fact, Person B should be grateful
for the knowledge which Person A’s obscenity laden rants have provided them.

Meanwhile, the only thing Person B needs
to do to get removed from the group is express any opinion to which Person A
objects. When this happens, the simple fact that Person A has objected is
expected to change Person B’s mind, and produce an immediate, unquestioning
apology.

I yearn for a feminism that was about
eliminating double standards between men and women, as opposed to erecting more.

As
I qualified earlier, safe spaces from which the public at large are
preemptively excluded are one thing. But if you hope to spread your ideology by
presenting it to an audience that includes those who don’t already agree with
every word (as you should!!!), you cannot cry oppression when people mention
that they don’t agree with every word. Pointing out the fallacies in your
argument is not the same as oppressing you, nor of furthering your oppression
at the hands of others.

You can call me privileged until you’re blue in the face,
but I will never accept the idea that members of oppressed classes are just too
oppressed to handle being presented with ideas they disagree with. And if they
are, I sympathetically but wholeheartedly encourage them to do everything in
their power to get over it, because that feature of a free society which
ensures they will encounter ideas they don’t like is one we absolutely mustnotabandon.